


Wayin/Wayout

by tessiete



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, happy new year, just enjoy the animals, this is not a comment on the author's personal feelings regarding zoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessiete/pseuds/tessiete
Summary: Trapped in the endless maze of a local zoo, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan do their best to avoid their enemies. But that doesn't mean there isn't time for a lesson or two.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30
Collections: Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan Discord Server Secret Santa (2020)





	Wayin/Wayout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ins0mnia (tornado_fox)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornado_fox/gifts).



> This is for the lovely and talented Dooku in the Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan Discord Server's Secret Santa! They asked for "Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan travel in the forest, or visiting Zoo on the midrim planet," and I had so much fun with it. I hope you enjoy it, too! <3

_There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there.  
  
\- A.A. Milne_

* * *

They’d passed the menagerie on their way into town, and at the time, Qui-Gon had made brief mention of its many attractions, as though somehow he might tempt Obi-Wan to insist upon it.

But this was never a part of his plan.

“Did you know that the Corellian ringocat is not a member of the lothcat family at all, but is actually more closely related to Viverrodian glutglut?”

“Fascinating,” his protege replies.

“Indeed,” Qui-Gon says. “And, in fact, it is not from Corellia at all, but is a native to the neighbouring planet, Selonia. It says so on the placard.”

“Master,” Obi-Wan whispers, and his voice is edging on impatience rather than anxious urgency. “As much as I am grateful for your dedication to my tutelage, might I suggest that now is not the ideal time to attend it? _Please._ ”

And with that, he disappears into the depths of the wild flora which obscures much of the ringocat’s exhibit from view. Qui-Gon spares one last glance behind them to ensure their escape has not been observed, and follows him in.

The forest - or rather, the facsimile of one - presses close around him, and he can hardly tell Obi-Wan’s path ahead of him except for the faint breeze which betrays the movement of his passage, and the gentle glow in the Force. He follows these blindly, trusting his padawan to lead them through without incident, focusing his own attention on their pursuers who even now draw nearer to their refuge.

The ground beneath their feet is soft, more moss than leaf litter, and the jelly-like fungi called _Buranxi’s Phlegm_ according to the description he’d noted as he’d waited for Obi-Wan to jimmy the door. It clings to his feet as they slip from the ringocat enclosure into the bladeback boar’s.

The fungi is forgotten as they crawl through the filth of the sty on their bellies, and when they have reached the opposite side they rise only high enough to get their feet beneath them, darting to the gizka enclosure. The cramped quarters of the small reptile necessitate another hasty crossing, and they tumble on into the bageraset pen. This one proves too open, too flat with no convenient outcroppings of rubble or trees in which to hide. A shaft of light swings over their position, illuminating the bottlebrush tips of Obi-Wan’s hair and waking the slumbering beast just to his left.

The creature lets out a low rumble, flashing a set of impressive teeth as its blackened eyes flicker towards wakefulness. Beside it, more of its kind lie drowsing.

“Master -!”  
  
“Sh, Obi-Wan, be still,” Qui-Gon commands. “The bageraset is herbivorous, like its cousin, the falumpaset. It will do us no harm.”

“The falumpaset are prone to stampeding, are they not, master?” Obi-Wan hisses in the dark.

“They are herd animals, my padawan,” says Qui-Gon. “Most herd animals will stampede given adequate cause. The plains of Naboo provide ample space for them to run, and I hear it is a most impressive sight.”

“Well, should that happen here, then I fear it shall be rather _less_ impressive when we emerge the worse for it.”

He shifts, and Qui-Gon can feel his energy shift with him, swinging from alertness to agitation. The huge creatures beside him also move, snorting and snuffling so that the dirt swirls over Obi-Wan’s feet and above his knees.

“Then, as I say: _be still_.”

Obi-Wan is obedient.

Unfortunately, their pursuers are less considerate.

A shout, another flare of light joins the first as it swings back round to catch them once more in the cross of their beams. They have been seen.

The bageraset grumbles low. Its kindred follow.

“ _Master…_ ”

“Obi-Wan,” he says, holding for just a fraction of a second more. But the animal is getting to its forelegs, its companions rising with it, and the voices are growing nearer and more enthusiastic, and the decision is made for him. “Run!”

Over the pseudo-grassland they race, leaping stones, and dodging the hollowed dens of the burrowing phix moles that share this space. The torches follow them, guessing their course as best they can, catching them every so often in broken frames of movement like an old world phantascope. Qui-Gon checks his shoulder, careful to keep himself between their enemies and Obi-Wan’s back, and when they come up against the rear wall of the exhibit, he crowds close to his padawan, shielding him as he trails his hands over smooth durasteel, hunting for the exit.

“It’s here, it’s here,” he says. “I can feel it. If I can just - _ah!_ ”

The door slides open, and they slip out as the thunderous beat of hooves rumbles over the hills behind them.

They catch their breath quickly, and like the wraith-wing pterons of Nal Hutta they disappear once more into shadows. Pressed against each other in the alcove, Qui-Gon keeps Obi-Wan still and out of sight as three of their enemy insurgents race past. Once their footsteps have faded away completely, he steps back, and Obi-Wan shakes himself out to breathe freely.

“Stay still,” he mocks. “Don’t run. The bageraset won’t stampede.”

“That’s not what I said, padawan.”

“Well,” says Obi-Wan, calmer now that he’s managed to sort out the lines of his tunics into an acceptable degree of order, like a regimented troop. There is little he can do about the mud, but he seems resigned to that, at least. “It was what you _implied._ ”

“Implication can only be understood by a suspicious mind.”

“You’re going to quote the philosophies of Master Vi Arosz _now_?”

“I thought you liked the old sophists.”

“Time and place, master.”

“Ah, I see,” says Qui-Gon, as they set forth once more to navigate their escape. “So only when they suit _your_ arguments.”

Obi-Wan says nothing to this, but he can feel the heat of his glare at his back, and takes comfort from the fact that his padawan follows closely enough as to be psychically tangible.

They walk swiftly, and unnoticed past many more exhibits contained behind glass, the enclosures growing smaller as they approach the entrance of the zoo, and hopefully, their point of egress. Pygmy stella moths beat dusty wings against the glass. Greepers scurry under the benevolent eye of well-fed fenglas. A selliwyrm disappears into its den, embarrassed to have been caught peeping by Obi-Wan. He turns away in disgust.

“Why put all the grubs at the front of the menagerie?” he ponders idly. “Aren’t most considered pests to be gotten rid of? And yet these gardens always seem to put them on prominent display.”

Qui-Gon looks back, then turns his attention to the slow progress of a tiehn slug. 

“How arrogant of you, Obi-Wan,” chides Qui-Gon. “To presume that a fennelwhiff is of less value than a fernglot.”

“I say nothing of their purpose, master,” counters Obi-Wan with suitable deference, though his humility is lacking. “Only of their beauty. It does not seem the thing to draw people in.”

“Perhaps,” says Qui-Gon, and he smiles at the slug and its slimy trail. “Perhaps they might say the same of you, if they could talk. Maybe it’s a kind of mercy putting them at the front of the gardens, away from the spectacle where disapproving faces like your own won’t linger.”

“Believe me, master, I’m well past the point of wanting to _linger_ anywhere,” says Obi-Wan. “Beauty or none.”

He’s halfway through an elaborate eye roll when Qui-Gon’s attention is caught by movement close ahead. A lone insurgent has been left to stand guard at the entrance, and patrols the gap vigilant to any and every escape they might attempt. Qui-Gon ushers Obi-Wan to the side, and the two peer out, tracking the guard’s movements, and weighing their odds.

“We can take him, master. Easy.”

“Yes, Obi-Wan, but I’d rather not leave anyone aware of our departure. Keep them here, keep them looking, and give ourselves a head start back to the docks.”

“Then what do you suggest?” his padawan asks.

Qui-Gon smirks. “We linger.”

Obi-Wan’s shoulders slump, and his mouth presses into a narrow line that only drives the corners of Qui-Gon’s own higher. 

“Come now,” he says, guiding Obi-Wan back into the depths of the zoological gardens. “Let us not waste an opportunity for the benefit of your education.”

Obi-Wan suffers through a thorough tour of nearly every feature as Qui-Gon reads placards, and recites from memory any supplemental material he can recall, regardless of the degree of interest. They parade in secret from the ax’alili display, to the vast amphitheatre housing an endangered zimpie beast. Though the exhibits are not in alphabetical order, Obi-Wan takes care to catalogue them so in his mind, using the technique as some measure of the time they’ve spent trapped in the gardens. When they circle back to the rhesus tapir again, he opens his mouth to suggest that they make another attempt - any attempt - on the lone guard, but he is cut short by the sound of a whistle.

“I’ve found them! I’ve found them! By the rhesus enclosure in Mem block!” The man blows his whistle again, and in a flurry of limbs, Obi-Wan shoves his master towards the nearest door, slicing through the coded lock with Force driven fingers. The steel gives way, and they stagger forward into the dark room, the door closing with a chiding hiss behind them.

They wait. Another whistle blows, but from a distance, and there are no attempts made on the door. Probably, their assailant has gone back for help, uneager to apprehend two Jedi single-handed. Qui-Gon turns to celebrate their luck, only to find Obi-Wan wreathed in...well…

“Master?” the boy asks. “What is it?”

“Let’s just say not _every_ species in the back subscribes to your conceit of beauty.”

Obi-Wan shudders, then freezes, hardly breathing.

“What _is_ it?”

“Nothing,” says Qui-Gon stepping forward. With a gentle roll of the Force, he coaxes off the grasping tendrils of clarispinners, near translucent arachnoids which nest in swarms (as Obi-Wan has so deftly discovered), but that, he thinks, is perhaps a lesson for another day.

He sweeps his hands over Obi-Wan’s head, keeping his eyes focused forward, and draws him close, away from the overhang of brush.

“Let’s try that escape plan again, shall we?”

Seizing their opportunity, the two sneak back out through the door, and sprint in the opposite direction they’d come. They are lucky enough to encounter no one, but in the spiralling corridors of the zoo’s architecture, designed specifically to keep guests running in circles, they end up emerging rather closer to the gates and its guard than intended. 

This time, they do not go unseen.

“Oi! You lot!” the guard cries, nearly as surprised as they are.

With his whistle halfway to his mouth, Obi-Wan throws it aside with an economical Force push, and they are left with an outraged, and outmatched guard. And, as Qui-Gon had recently pointed out, _the most fearsome animals are the ones in most desperate straits_.

And so, with their blades ignited, and the man’s blaster drawn, they fall into a vicious scuffle. Both Jedi are careful to redirect all blasts, but their opponent is aiming to kill. He is saved only by Qui-Gon’s repeated assertions that this local cell of radicals had every right to protest their presence, and any injury done by them would only escalate the situation beyond repair. So Obi-Wan feints, and dodges, and keeps out of the way while Qui-Gon does his best to force the man into submission before his friends arrive. 

It is an impossible situation - one side hopelessly outmatched but fighting for his life, and the other intent on pushing the other into a surrender that will never be accepted. They do not have the time for this. So when the opportunity presents itself to Obi-Wan, he takes it.

The man is backed up to the glass of another ugly species when Obi-Wan swings his blade wide. Transparisteel is strong, but it cannot withstand the edge of a lightsaber, and it shatters beneath his stroke. The man falls back, tumbling over the spectator’s cordon and going legs over backside into the shallow pond within. He splutters, trying to right himself, trying to push the hair out of his face, trying to -

But it is too late, and in an instant, the man goes stiff as duracrete, and topples face forward into the water.

Qui-Gon extinguishes his blade, and leaps forth to lift the man from submersion, lest he drown.

“Careful, master!” calls Obi-Wan, warning Qui-Gon away from the shallows himself. 

The master listens, and with help, he pulls the man from the display by his ankles. They prop him against the wall, while Qui-Gon takes his pulse.

“He’s alive,” he says. 

“Of course,” says Obi-Wan. “The kar’meduseya are native to the oceans of Mandalore, and while their sting is enough to kill their prey, it only causes temporary paralysis in a full grown man.” He smiles. “Or didn’t you read the placard at the front, master?”

Qui-Gon feels his heart beat temper, and a rueful grin spread unwillingly across his face - _the cheek of this boy. And the cleverness, too -_ but the pounding of feet and the shrill alarm of many whistles pushes him to stand.

“And now you concede the utility of such ugly beasts,” he says, and his padawan smiles. “But it seems to me our escape is at hand, and we best not linger any longer. You shall have to gloat another day.”

He summons Obi-Wan to him, and of course, Obi-Wan goes, and together they make their way out, racing past the gate and vanishing into the night.

  
  



End file.
